Biden: ‘Pakistan might be one of the most dangerous nations in the world’ | Abroad

Pakistan demands explanation from US ambassador over strong statements by President Joe Biden about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The US president called the Asian country “perhaps one of the most dangerous nations in the world” at a meeting and questioned the security of Pakistan’s nuclear program. Biden said the country has nuclear weapons without any coherence.

The president made those statements Thursday at a closed Democratic Party fundraising meeting. Biden’s comments were later published by the White House, sparking bad blood in Islamabad. Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said he was surprised and emphasized that the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is in order. “We comply with every international standard in accordance with the IAEA.” The IAEA is the international nuclear watchdog.

Clarification

Zardari said during a press conference that Pakistan wants clarification from the ambassador, but already indicated that Biden did not make his statements in an official capacity. “It was not a speech addressed to the nation or to parliament. We must give them the opportunity to explain this position. As far as we’re concerned, this need not harm ties between the United States and Pakistan.”

Biden called Pakistan dangerous after talking about its dealings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and how China is trying to figure out how it wants to relate to Russia, India and Pakistan.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari during his press conference on Joe Biden’s statements on Saturday. © AFP

Relations between Islamabad and Washington have been improving somewhat recently, after years of strained relations. The main reason for this is that the US suspects Pakistan of supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, which the government denies. Pakistan is also said to have housed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was knocked out by US special forces in his Pakistani hideout in 2011.

Biden is more likely to use his Democratic Party meetings to voice concerns about the use of nuclear weapons. Last week, the president reported that the risk of nuclear disaster is at its highest level since the height of the Cold War. According to Biden, the risk of a ‘nuclear armageddon’ not been this high since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the Cold War reached a boiling point.

Nine countries with nuclear weapons

According to a June 2021 report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), there are nine states with nuclear weapons: Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. Together they owned an estimated 13,080 at the beginning of 2021. That is less than a year earlier, when there were still an estimated 13,400 nuclear weapons. Pakistan is said to possess 165 nuclear weapons.

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